


7x02: The Violence We Do To Ourselves

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anomaly Flashbacks, Children of Gabriel, Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Flashbacks, Gen, Healing, Memories, Mindspaces, Post-Episode: s06e13 The Blood of Sanctum, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Temporal Anomaly, The 100 (TV) Season 7 Speculation, The Anomaly - Freeform, Therapy, mental health, new worlds, shared memories, time dilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22257892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: Bellamy, Hope and Gabriel encounter an obstacle while returning to Sanctum. Octavia attempts to negotiate with Miller and Gaia as they struggle to accept their new reality.16 weeks. 16 episodes. An entire fan-created speculative version of season 7. Each episode will have four chapters, posted once per day from Tuesday to Friday.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Hope Diyoza, Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Octavia Blake & Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake & Echo, Octavia Blake & Gaia, Octavia Blake & Madi, Octavia Blake & Nathan Miller, Octavia Blake & Niylah, Raven Reyes & Indra
Series: OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595290
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on from episode 7x01, so if you haven't read that one yet, you can do so [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22162840/chapters/52906273)!
> 
> **Warning:** This episode deals heavily with issues of mental health, with particular focus on PTSD, traumatic memories and self-harm. Approach with caution if any of these issues are a part of your life. Always practice self-care!
> 
> There is also a use of the Grounder ableist slur _frikdreina_ ("mutant" in Trigedasleng).
> 
> The title of this episode is from a line from the show _Sense8_ , episode 1x09 "Death Doesn't Let You Say Goodbye". The full line is "The real violence, the violence that I realized was unforgivable, was the violence that we do to ourselves, when we're too afraid to be who we really are." If you haven't watched this show, I highly recommend it!

**_CLARKE’S MINDSPACE - SKYBOX CELL - NIGHT_ **

“Octavia?” Clarke asked in surprise. “What the - wait. Are you here, or are you just a subconscious projection of me?”

“I’m here.”

“Wait - how? How are you here, in my mindspace?”

“You’ve still got that mind drive in your head.”

“I know, Russell said it was too delicate to remove right now with my brain the state it is in. But that doesn’t explain how you are here.”

“It’s a long story I don’t have time for. You’re in trouble, and not just because of the brain damage and the coma.”

“I know. Madi’s gone. She’s gone, Octavia, and I don’t know where she went.”

“You don’t have to worry about Madi. She’s here with me. I know that must have been alarming and I’m so sorry, but I didn’t have much time. But when I understood what my mind was telling me, I knew she’d be safer with me. She’s safe. Niylah, Miller, Gaia, they’re all safe too. I need their help, and trust me when I say that with what’s coming out there, it is better for Madi to be here. She doesn’t need to go through that again.”

“Go through what?”

Octavia opened her hand, revealing a blue pill. “You need to take this.”

“What is that?”

“Call it antivirus software.”

When Clarke didn’t take it, Octavia rolled her eyes. “Come on. We were talking about doing better, right? For us to be able to do that, I need you to take this. I’m promising you that I’ll take care of Madi, just like I’ll promise her that I’ll take care of you. So take the damn pill.”

Clarke took the pill from Octavia, but just observed it curiously, not taking it.

Octavia sighed. “Please. Take it. I can’t be worrying about saving your ass and protecting Madi at the same time. I’ve already got too many balls in the air over here.”

“Where are you? Are you in Gabriel’s camp?”

“No. I had to go back through the Anomaly. I still have work to do here.”

“So you chose to go back through the Anomaly when it expanded? Murphy said you had the code to the Anomaly Stone on your back and then Russell said Gabriel might have used it to activate that Stone.”

“Yes. Well, sort of.” Octavia looked sheepish. “I’d lost my memories of what happened on the other side after I’d passed through the Anomaly. So I didn’t know about the code or what it was for. Then Gabriel saw it and recognized the symbols. But when we entered it onto the keystone, I pressed the last symbol. That’s when I started to remember. When the Anomaly expanded, I remembered everything. I didn’t have much time before it would take me back through, so Hope - Hope came. And I brought who I could with me. Because now I understand what my mind was trying to tell me the whole time after I came back.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. Don’t stress about it right now. Right now what you need, what we _all_ need, is for you to heal. Rest. You have my word that I’ll protect Madi. That pill will put your mind into an even deeper sleep than the drugs will, as well as protect you from him.”

“Him? Him who?”

“Sheidheda.”

**_SECOND DAWN BUNKER - CAFETERIA_ **

_“I mean no disrespect, but I would rather die with my brother, than -”_

_Gasps all around as the gun is grabbed from the guard’s waist belt._

_Kane jumps up from his seat, walking towards the unfolding scene. “Octavia, what are you doing?”_

_“You are Wonkru, or you are an enemy of Wonkru.”_

_The cube of human meat is back on the plate. Gun pointed towards the resister’s head._

_“Choose.”_

_“Octavia, put the gun down. Please.” Kane’s voice is calm, but there’s an undercurrent of fear. He’s said these words before. These words have worked before. But this is a different world. Different circumstances. Everything is different._

_The hand holding the gun shakes. The resister is innocent of all moral crimes. He doesn’t deserve to die. But if he doesn’t, all of Wonkru will. Either by starvation or by tearing themselves apart with guilt over eating their friends and family, and with that done, tear each other apart too, in an endless war that would only end with all of them dead._

_There’s no choice. He has to die. He knows it, too, and challenges the gun, sitting up straight -_

_\- the gun fires. Screams ring out._

_Murphy lowers the gun._

Murphy shot up straight in his bed in the Sanctum palace, breathing heavy, the sound of the gunshot still ringing through his head.

_What the hell?_

Emori stirred beside him. “John, what’s wrong?” She asked in a sleepy voice.

“Just a nightmare. It’s okay, go back to bed.”

“You haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

“Not since dying two weeks ago, anyway. But this was… I don’t know what it was.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Emori sat up, resting her chin on Murphy’s shoulder. “You can talk to me. We’re going to need each other as we try to figure out how to live with these people that think we’re gods.”

“They know we’re not.”

“I’m not so sure about that. A lot of them still want to believe, especially since Russell came back to them.”

“They’ll have to find something else to believe in then. Being a god isn’t as fun as it sounded.”

“Things will settle down. Our people will learn to live together.” Emori smirked as she kissed Murphy’s shoulder. “I bet it will really grind their gears to see that the Sanctum people revere a _frikdreina.”_

“Hey.” Murphy said, turning around and kissing Emori’s forehead. “I thought you weren’t going to use that word about yourself anymore.”

“John, you know what they think of me. I can’t change that. It might have been okay in the City of Light, or when we were on the Ring, but with other people from Earth, other _Grounders_ from Earth - they won’t have any sort of respect for me.”

“We’ll make them respect you, all right? This is our world. They’re new here.”

“So are we.”

“By a few very important weeks. We’ll make it work. We can leverage the Sanctum people if we have to. But we’ll make them respect you.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I know I am. Come on, let’s go back to sleep.”

They both lay back down, and soon Murphy heard Emori’s breathing even out, and he even chuckled at the cute little snores she made. But sleep didn’t come. He’d been able to redirect the conversation away from his nightmare, but it still rang in his head.

Abby had told him about the Dark Year in broad strokes, but nothing specific. Not enough to be able to construct any specific scenario in his mind. But this didn’t feel like a nightmare hack job - it felt frighteningly real.

But if it wasn’t a nightmare, what else could it be?

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - NIGHT_ **

Octavia came to in her underground lab, head pounding, heavy with the new memories it contained.

She’d managed to make it back through the Anomaly without being detected. Coming through on the edge of the forest with the unconscious bodies of Madi, Miller, Gaia and Niylah, she’d managed to get them all out of sight, and a few hours later, down to her hidden underground lab after she was sure that their arrival hadn’t sparked any patrols. As she waited for them to wake, she had gotten to work.

The four she’d brought with her still weren’t awake, leaving her to contemplate the horror of the new memories she’d gained in exchange for sharing hers. Horror for horror, it was only fair.

But the memories themselves weren’t new. Only the perspective was. She’d been there that day in the delinquents’ camp. She’d objected to what the delinquents were doing to him, she’d tried to stop it, but back then she had neither the physical strength nor the societal clout to have any sort of effect.

Luckily, with Charlotte’s confession, he lived, but the residual trauma of was still there, deep in his mind. As well as the trauma of being exiled into the hostile woods, captured by the locals, tortured for information…

Perhaps she had more in common with the cockroach than she’d realized.

Octavia wiped her tears away. Years of sharing memories, years of meeting and sharing and getting to really _know_ more people than she ever had in the first twenty years of her life, seeing more painful and traumatic memories than she could count, and it never got any easier. But it wasn’t supposed to be easy. Nothing meaningful ever was.

But through pain came empathy. Through empathy came connection, and through connection the universe was being revolutionized.

Now Octavia just needed her brother and her people to understand her gift. She knew Echo was on her way, and she prepared to go aboveground to meet her.

**_20 YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME - ONE WEEK AFTER PASSING THROUGH THE ANOMALY_ **

**_OMPHALOS - HOSPITAL - DAY_ **

Despite being released from the hospital a week after arriving on Omphalos, Octavia found herself back in it the following day, part of an agreement that she had with the Council.

Concerned about her mental health and using a lot of words that she didn’t understand, the Council had decided that for Octavia to be able to successfully participate in the mission to restore Terra, she needed to go to something called _therapy._ Something Octavia had only ever read vague references to, a luxury that wasn’t available on the Ark or in the bunker, but having read about it during her hospital stay, the idea both comforted and terrified her.

She hoped that she could heal her mind as her body had been healed, but the idea of sharing the ugly parts of her past with someone else terrified her to her core.

In the hospital, Octavia made her way through the halls until she arrived at Dr Warner’s office, making herself comfortable in one of the armchairs while the doctor finished up some paperwork. Finally, she finished her notes, put them in a drawer, taking a seat in the armchair across from Octavia.

“How are you feeling today, Octavia?”

“Overwhelmed.”

“Tell me why.”

“This is a new world, and there’s so much to learn. Not only about here, but for what I need to know to be able to go on the mission to Terra.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

Octavia thought for a minute. “Relieved.”

“Feeling overwhelmed makes you relieved? Please explain that.”

“I… there’s a lot to learn, and I know I’m going to have a lot of work ahead of me if I want to understand even half of it. But the success or failure of that work relies entirely on me, and it only affects me. If I fail, the worst that will happen is that I have to try again, or try something else. No one will die. Everyone will still have enough food, water, air… so yeah. Overwhelmed, but relieved.”

“You were a leader back on Terra.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re glad that you don’t have to fight for survival, not only for your own, but that of hundreds of people.”

“Yeah.”

“Leading was hard for you.”

“Is that a statement or a question?”

“A statement. Would you rather it were a question?”

“No. I mean, you’re not wrong. I never wanted to lead.”

“What was the hardest part of leading?”

“The fact that - I - the decisions I had to make.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We lived in a zero-sum world there in that bunker. There was no room for error. We believed we were the last of humanity. So I had to treat every decision with that in mind - will this help humanity survive?”

“What would you say was the hardest decision?”

“I…” How could she even begin to explain the Dark Year to a person who had lived their entire lives in Omphalos, a world of peace and plenty? A world where food was just _there,_ and not a fight for survival?

“Take your time. But I do want an answer. That’s why we’re here. To talk about the difficult things, so that you can begin to move past them.”

“Some things you shouldn’t move past.” Octavia whispered, digging her fingers into the fabric of the armchair. “Some deeds you can’t just ignore or forget.”

“You believe you have to suffer with the weight of what you’ve done to survive, because otherwise that dishonours those who may have suffered or even died because of the choices you made?”

“Yes.”

“You believe that if you forgive yourself for your past, that it means you’ve forgotten what you’ve done?”

“Yes.”

“Octavia. Octavia, please look at me.”

Octavia looked up, begrudgingly, to look Dr Warner in the eye. Her expression was soft and non-judgmental, a look that she hadn’t seen on anyone’s face but Niylah’s. Everyone else had always been full of judgment, or all harsh lines and not… soft.

“I am not here to judge you.” Dr Warner said. “None of us are. Not me, not the Council, not the common citizens of Omphalos. We know you have a past. But we also know you don’t want to repeat it, and that you want a future that bears no resemblance to your past. That’s all we expect from you - that you work towards a better future.”

“Then why am I here? Why do you want me to talk about my past if it doesn’t matter?”

“Because it does matter. It matters because it is a part of you that will hold you back from being everything you could be. You can’t hide from your past. You can’t hide from your demons. You have to confront them to be able to heal them. To be able to heal yourself. You want to heal, don’t you?”

“I don’t deserve it.” Octavia looked away again, fidgeting with her hands.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Everything I did, I… I can’t.” She dug her fingernails into her palms, knuckles turning white from the pressure.

“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you wanted to. Do you want to heal, Octavia?”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts. Listen to me, Octavia. You want to do right by your people and bring them back to Earth, correct?”

“Yes.”

“This is the way you do that. To be able to put your all into the work you’re going to need to do, you need to be the best version of yourself that you can be. And the only way you can do that is by moving past your past. By letting it be in the past. By not tormenting yourself with it anymore, because you feel you deserve that pain, or because you feel you don’t deserve to be happy, that you don’t deserve peace. The effects of war are what brought you here. The only thing that will bring you back is peace. Do you understand?”

“I… I think so.”

“Okay. Good. Now back to my original question - what was the hardest decision you had to make as a leader?”

“The Dark Year.”

“What was the Dark Year?”

“It… all we had in the bunker for food was the hydrofarm. It was already not going to last us much past those five years, but then after two years, there was a fungus that wiped out our protein plants. It would take a year to regrow from seed, and in the meantime, if we didn’t have protein, we’d die. So we - we had to - you know -”

“I do know. Wouldn’t be the first time in history. But I need you to say it.”

“I - we - we became cannibals for a year. We had to. But - that wasn’t the worst part.”

“What was the worst part?”

“Not everyone wanted to eat. We - we didn’t kill people for food. It was criminals, criminals who had died in the fighting pits. We had to have zero tolerance for any sort of crime. On the Ark people were straight-up executed for crimes, unless they were minors, but I did what I could to - to not make it that harsh. So the fighting pits, someone would survive and be welcomed back into our society, into Wonkru.”

“Sounds reasonable, given the circumstances.”

Octavia nodded. “Yeah. But not everyone wanted to eat. If they’d just eaten when I asked - it wouldn’t have been so awful.”

“What made it so awful?”

“Abby… our head doctor, Doctor Abigail Griffin. She was one of my advisers. She said that people couldn’t not eat. That if that happened, we’d all starve, because their bodies, when they finally died from starvation, wouldn’t be enough to feed us. And she talked about the Blight on the Ark, where a few generations before me they’d also had to resort to cannibalism to survive, and when given a choice, they - it destroyed them emotionally. The guilt of that choice did. Abby said I couldn’t let that happen.”

Dr Warner’s eyes turned sad. “Go on.”

“I was the leader. I had to take away the choice. It was up to me, and - I had to do it. I told them they had to eat. I begged them to eat. But they wouldn’t. And then I shot them. Kahlan kom Sangedakru. Anamay kom Podakru. Ruaidri kom Boudelankru. Maralee kom Boudelankru was next, but - but then Kane - the leader of those who were resisting - ate. And the others followed. I - I wished it hadn’t gone that far, but - what else could I do? I’d presented my terms. There was no going back.” Octavia buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “After that - after that people could eat with a clear conscience. Because they knew if they didn’t eat, that they would die. So it wasn’t their sin to bear. I’d taken that burden from them.”

“And Abby? What did she do?”

“Nothing.” Octavia whispered. “She said nothing. She did nothing. She just… disappeared.”

“She didn’t do anything to support you?”

Octavia shook her head. “Nothing. She barely spoke to me after that. Then when we were freed from the bunker, she and Kane joined up with the enemy and… even though the enemy was a smiling sociopath who killed for fun and profit, who wanted to wipe out all of our people, Kane and Abby thought he was a better choice of leader than me.”

“When did you last see Abby?”

“The day I was exiled from Sanctum by my brother.”

“Take me through that day.”

“It started on the mothership. I was training with my friend Niylah. Then we were boarded by some of the people from Sanctum who had stolen our transport ship from the group who were already on the ground. They knocked us out - well, all of us who were awake, about twenty of us - with gas and locked us all in the cafeteria. I was in pain. Not physical pain, but - emotional pain. Over everything that had happened, and I wanted it just to stop.”

“So what did you do?”

“I provoked them into attacking me.”

“Abby?”

“No, the rest of my people. And most of them did. They beat me. James was about to slit my throat, when Abby intervened.”

“What did she do?”

“She said ‘let her live with what she’s become’. And he did. He put the knife away.”

“She was projecting her own guilt onto you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“How old were you when you first met people besides your brother and mother?”

“Sixteen.”

“When you became the leader of your people?”

“Seventeen.”

“And the Dark Year?”

“Nineteen.”

“And now?”

“Technically? One hundred and forty-eight, after cryosleep. But biologically, twenty-three.”

“That’s a lot for such a young age.”

“That was our world. It isn’t like this one.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you. But we’re not finished talking about it.”

“We aren’t?”

“I’m afraid not. This will be a topic we revisit regularly. Your deepest darkest pains are going to have to be front and center, until they no longer feel so deep and dark.”

“And how will that happen?”

“Shining a light on them. And time. And letting go.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can. And you will. You’re already strong to have made it this far.”

“I guess Diyoza didn’t tell you about how she almost shot me in the quicksand because I wanted to die.”

“She did. But she didn’t do it, did she? And after that you wanted to live again. Being hit with that temporal flare is what you brought you here and healed you.”

“Yeah.”

“So you have three options. Four, actually. You could go back the way you came, back through the Anomaly to your Planet Alpha, and continue trying to survive in that forest. Alone, since I believe Charmaine wants to stay here. You can go back, go up to Sanctum, and demand that your brother let you back in. You can stay here, give up on your studies, and we’ll find you a menial job like the one Diyoza was doing before she had her baby. Or you can stay here, keep studying, and keep coming to see me every afternoon, and in time, help send humanity back to Terra. What will it be?”

“The last one.”

“Good. Then you’ve made the decision to heal. You’ve made the decision that you deserve to heal. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. It won’t be easy, but I promise you, this will all be worth it in the end.”

**_PLANET ALPHA - FOREST - MORNING_ **

Bellamy, Hope and Gabriel were silent as they made their way through the forest, each person’s mind elsewhere as they tried to process the events of the past few days.

That made them easy targets, and in no time, they were surrounded by the Children of Gabriel, all armed to the teeth and pointing their weapons.

“You betrayed us!” One of them yelled at Gabriel. “Not only are you a Prime, but you took our brother from us, and while we were ready to forgive you when we invaded Sanctum, you changed the rules there too. Do ideals only matter when they’re to be kept up by someone besides yourself, is that what it is, old man?”

“I see you made it back to the forest just fine.” Gabriel said.

“We did. We fled when Russell unleashed the red sun toxin. Smart of us, too, because I see that those who didn’t are _dead.”_ The man spat. “We found Layla’s body, dumped outside of the borders of Sanctum this morning. You took her brother’s body, and now she’s dead too. What are we supposed to tell their parents, back in the colony?”

“I’ll speak to them myself in time.” Gabriel said evenly. “I will deliver the news on my own, Ahab.”

“You’ll do it now.” Ahab stepped right into Gabriel’s personal space, holding a knife to his throat. “We’ll take your friends to the cave. You will go to the colony to talk to Maria and Jeremiah. Tell them that both of their children are dead, and that Xavier has been dead a lot longer than they thought.”


	2. Chapter 2

**_OMPHALOS - FOREST - MORNING_ **

Echo did as Octavia - _had that really been Octavia?_ \- instructed, turning right as soon as she got through the Anomaly, plunging into the depths of a forest, dark at first, but as the sun rose, visibility was better.

She hadn’t been seen, that she knew - Echo knew how to move quickly and quietly to escape the notice of others. She also knew when there were eyes on her, and as she passed into a clearing, she definitely felt them.

Spinning around, Echo relaxed when she saw Octavia standing there. As Hope had promised - healthy and hale and with no sign that she’d just been gutted hours before.

“Octavia.”

“Echo. Welcome.”

“Hope was telling the truth. You’re fine. You really heal that quickly?”

“I do. Besides, it was a small knife.” Octavia gave Echo a knowing look. “I’ve survived wounds from bigger blades than that.”

Echo smirked at that. “It wasn’t personal.”

“I know. I was the one who walked onto your blade anyway.”

“Hope said you brought people with you? Where are they?”

“Down below.” Octavia pulled a monitoring tablet out of her pocket, letting Echo see the camera feed from the lab. “They haven’t woken up yet.”

“But it’s been hours.”

“I know. Sometimes the first trip across a keystone portal can take a lot out of you, especially if you aren’t prepared for it. They’re fine, they just need to rest and they’ll wake good as new.”

“I’ve been seeing some strange visions, even though Gabriel gave me the antitoxin. I still saw them after crossing over too - I thought there wasn’t red sun toxin here?”

“There isn’t. What you’re seeing has nothing to do with the toxin.”

“I saw you, in front of the Anomaly. Telling me where to go after I crossed over.”

Octavia nodded. “You did. That was me. What you’re seeing isn’t because of the toxin, it is because of my blood.”

“Hope said that your blood would guide me to you. But I feel like it is more than that, since she was hellbent on the fact that they needed your blood on the other side, and that’s why she stabbed you. That she couldn’t explain it, that people had to see.”

“Yes. Raven and Jackson will be able to help her with that in Sanctum. People should usually see before they take it, but yours is a special case -”

“A special case? You mean you’ve given your blood to more people? To heal them, or -”

“Nothing to do with my healing ability, that unfortunately isn’t something I can share effectively. I would if I could, but I can’t. But yes, thousands of people across the universe, across many different worlds, have my blood. But more importantly, they have what is _in_ my blood.”

“What is in your blood?” Echo looked down at her arm. “What is in _my_ blood?”

“You have to see. Come downstairs, get comfortable, and then it is time for you take a journey into your mindspace.”

“My mindspace?”

“Did Clarke tell you anything about being trapped in her own head, when Josephine took over her body?”

“A bit. She revisited different parts of her past, encountered people long dead. And Josephine, of course.”

“Right. We all have mindspaces, they’re a subconscious world that exists within all of us. I’ve spent a lot of time in mine, both while I was living here in Omphalos and after I lost my memories returning to Planet Alpha. For you to understand what’s happening in your blood now, you first have to take a journey through your mindspace. Then things will become clearer.”

“Okay.”

“I should warn you, it probably won’t be pleasant. You’ll probably encounter parts of yourself that you have hidden away, and for good reason. But after you face them, after you face yourself - you’ll begin to find your peace.”

“Have you found the peace you needed?”

“Many times over.” Octavia looked down. “Being back here, having all of my memories again - everything that happened on Earth seems so long ago. But I do also remember what it was like being on Planet Alpha for the past few days, when it seemed to me that no time had been missing at all, and all of those memories of Earth were still very fresh. It’s confusing. But doesn’t matter which story thread I follow - they all lead to peace.”

“You really think peace is possible? That we can do better?”

“I know it. After you go through your mindspace, you will know it too.”

“Then let’s get started.”

**_ECHO’S MINDSPACE - AN EMPTY WHITE ROOM - DAY_ **

When Echo first opened her eyes in her mindspace, she thought she hadn’t left Octavia’s lab at all. The stark white walls, ceilings, floors all blending into each other.

But there was no equipment, no doors to other rooms, no Octavia - there was nothing. Just a white emptiness that seemed to go on forever.

Then she looked down at herself, and saw that she was no longer wearing the black Sanctum guard uniform. Instead, she wore a simple white dress with no embellishments of any kind. A dress that made _her_ blend into that same white of the room.

_What is this place?_ Echo wondered. “Where -”

Echo attempted to speak, but with a panic discovered she couldn’t. Her hands flew to her face, feeling, searching, but already knowing the answer - somehow her _mouth_ wasn’t there.

She jumped to her feet, looking around herself, wondering what the hell was happening to her, why she’d lost her ability to speak, hadn’t Octavia said that she needed to face parts of herself? Nothing here was familiar. Nothing here was her past.

Echo had feared being taken back to the cellar where she’d hidden from the soldiers, where her mother had died in the fire, from which she’d been taken to the Ice Queen, who had renamed her _Ash_ so that she’d constantly have that reminder of her past.

Then she’d lost that name too, becoming _Echo_ after killing her best friend and assuming her identity. And that’s what she became - an echo, never a voice of her own, always someone else’s weapon.

_No voice of her own._

_The emptiness of the white room._

The pieces started falling into place. She understood why she was here.

She’d never had her own voice. Now that emotional feeling had been made flesh. She’d always been someone else’s to mold and to form - and here she was, a blank slate in a blank room, ready to be imprinted with the next mission.

_But no,_ Echo thought. _That’s not true. I have a family now. I’m not a weapon anymore. I have a voice._

_Is that really true?_ A voice that sounded like Bellamy’s whispered in her ear.

_But do they really know **you**?_ Queen Nia’s mocking tone echoed through the room.

_Are you willing to fight for who you are?_ Her friend, the _real_ Echo, whose voice she hadn’t heard in years.

She looked for the source of the voices, but she found none. She was alone in the room, alone with the voices of her past and present echoing all around her, driving her to her knees as she covered her hands with her ears, wishing for a tranquilizer like she’d used during the red sun to quiet them all.

They screamed at her for what felt like hours, she didn’t know how much time had actually passed, she didn’t know how long she’d been there, trying to hide from them, but they didn’t stop, they _wouldn’t_ stop. The crescendo of the voices just grew and grew until they were all united in one phrase.

_**Who** are you?_

_Who **are** you?_

_Who are **you**?_

**_Who are you?_ **

**_WHO ARE YOU?_ **

“I don’t know!” She screamed, startling at the sound of her own voice, startled that suddenly she _had_ a voice.

The voices went quiet.

She slowly lowered her hands from her ears, feeling for her mouth, relieved that it was back where it should have been.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was a whisper now. “I don’t know who I am. I’ve been wiped and reprogrammed so many times I don’t know who I am anymore. I thought our years in space may have changed that, but the truth is - they didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone anything about my past, not even Bellamy, not until I felt him pushing me away because of it. Bellamy saved my life, and I - I still couldn’t share who I was with him. Maybe because I didn’t know myself. Living like that on the Ring was easy. No pressure, no changes, nothing that would challenge that cocoon we found ourselves in. But that doesn’t work out in the real world. 

“Bellamy promised me that nothing would change when we returned to the ground, but everything did. When we left the Ring I became a soldier again, and like always, my loyalty was assumed and taken for granted as long as I kept quiet. As long as I was… just an echo. As long as I could be counted on without question.

“It was when I began to question that after we landed on Alpha that I could see the cracks form in that cocoon. That I was taken for granted, that I was expected to fight, but that no one would fight for me. Maybe that’s what’s brought me here. I know things, but - I couldn’t bear to be out there where I’d fight but not be fought for.”

“You don’t have to feel that way anymore.” Octavia’s voice came into her thoughts. “You’re so close. It is time to emerge from that cocoon. It is time to make that final step in your metamorphosis. Time to open your wings and fly.” 

She opened her eyes, and saw Octavia’s _shadow_ falling over her in the white of the room.

Octavia was _here,_ not just a disembodied voice like the others had been. But as she looked up, she saw Octavia wasn’t alone - there were dozens, maybe even hundreds of people standing behind her, as far as she could see.

“What is this?”

“We’ll all fight for you now.” Octavia said, reaching out her hand to help her stand.

“I don’t understand.”

“This is what you have now. This is what we all have. The power of connection. You’re one of us. You don’t ever have to feel alone anymore, because you won’t be. If you need help figuring out who you are, who you _want_ to be, we can help you.” Octavia smiled, squeezing her hand. “Believe me, I understand how you feel. I spent the first twenty-three years of my life being defined by other people. The Girl Under the Floor. Bellamy’s Sister. Indra’s Second. Skairipa. Osleya. Blodreina. I’ve been so many different girls that I didn’t know who I was anymore when all of those identities were stripped away from me in what felt like an instant. I didn’t know how to just be _Octavia._ But then I got that chance. You have it now too.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“We could start with a name. What would you like us to call you?”

“I - that might be the hardest, actually.”

“Okay. Think on it. No pressure.” Octavia turned her head to the side, looking off into empty space for a moment, before returning her gaze to her. “I have to go. They’re about to wake up. But our friends here -” Octavia nodded at the people behind her. “- they can explain more to you, the science of what we have. Of who we are. Then when you wake, come join us in the main room. But no rush. Take as long as you need here.”

Octavia squeezed her hand again, and vanished, leaving her alone with the crowd, people she was sure she had never met, but somehow felt a pull towards. As she looked closer, she saw different places flicker in behind them, something besides the stark white of her mindspace, momentary visions like she’d had coming towards the Anomaly.

“Hi.” She said carefully, addressing the crowd. “I… I guess I have questions.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - MORNING_ **

Echo was still deep in her mindspace as Octavia left it, returning back to where she was sitting on the floor in her main lab space. When Echo - or whoever she wanted to be known as now - was ready, she’d wake up too.

As Octavia got to her feet, she saw that her senses had been right - Niylah was beginning to stir. Octavia went over to her quickly, kneeling down beside her as she began to sit up, confused by her surroundings.

“What happened?” Niylah asked, holding her head as she registered Octavia’s presence. “Where am I?”

“We call it Omphalos. The centre of the universe.” Octavia said. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” Niylah asked, ever the healer, resting her hand on Octavia’s shoulder and looking at her face, looking for any trace of the injuries that she’d had the last time they’d seen each other, but finding none, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“I am.” Octavia smiled, taking Niylah’s hand off her shoulder and holding it between both of hers. “It’s a long story. So that I only have to tell it once, we need to wait until Gaia, Miller and Madi are awake. But I am okay. Better than okay, even. I need to know what you remember.”

“I… I was sitting in the tavern in Sanctum with Raven, Indra and Gaia. We were surrounded by a green cloud of smoke. I felt it grab me and I couldn’t get out of it. I saw it had Gaia too. Then… nothing. Until I woke up here. Is this another settlement near Sanctum?”

“No.” Octavia said. “We are nowhere near Sanctum right now. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you any warning, but I couldn’t remember what had happened to me, and when I did - there was no time. I needed to protect you. And I needed your help.”

“Help? For what?”

“I guess you didn’t hear me when I said I don’t take orders from you anymore.” Miller’s voice. He was awake, and angry.

“Miller.” Octavia stood up to face him. “I’m not asking you to take orders from me.”

“Really? Because that’s what it sounds like. Bringing us here without asking and expecting us to do what you want.”

“I know how you’re feeling.” Octavia said, looking at Miller and Gaia, who was also starting to come to. “I know how all of us felt, after we’d worked so hard for something that was denied to us. Everything we bled for, everything we killed for, seemed to be for nothing. And I know you haven’t had the same time as I have had to deal with it. To get past the nightmares. To get past the pain. I know that takes time, believe me I know.”

“How can you know?” Gaia asked. “What _time_ have you had that we haven’t? Time doesn’t move differently for different people.”

“As a matter of fact, it does.” Octavia said. “Right now we find ourselves in a place called Omphalos. If you heard about the Anomaly in Sanctum, this is the place that is on the other side of it. Time moves at a different pace here as it does there. Most of the time, anyway, for the past few days they’ve been moving in sync. But when I first entered the Anomaly, less than a week ago in Sanctum time, they were very different in time, and when I came out after what seemed like just a few seconds later to an observer on that side, I’d spent twenty years here. This -” Octavia indicated the lab around them. “- is my laboratory. I’ve been working here for the past twenty years to do what I’d only dreamed of being able to do in the bunker.”

“You’ve somehow had twenty years in the space of a few seconds?” Miller asked, skepticism heavy in his voice as he crossed his arms over his chest. “But you haven’t aged. You really expect us to believe that?”

“Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant. It is real. Just as this is.” Octavia reached for a scalpel sitting on a nearby table. She sliced the palm of her hand open in full view of the others, and they all watched with fascination how the cut healed back over in seconds.

“How is that even possible?” Gaia asked in wonder, standing up and walking over to inspect Octavia’s hand for any tricks, but finding none.

“It is a long story. My story, of the past twenty years. What’s happened to me, what I’ve been able to do. How I was able to make real the hope that we clung to for years.”

“Make real what hope?” Niylah asked.

“Taking us home. Back to Earth. Back to an Earth that is lush and green and we won’t have to fight about anything ever again.” Octavia looked at them all, one at a time. “I know we did terrible things to survive. I did more of them than anyone. I’m not asking any of that of you now.”

“Then what are you asking of us?” Gaia asked.

“I’m just asking for you to hear my story. I’ll tell you, and then I will show you. If after that you still want to go back to Sanctum, I’ll show you the way. But I think you’ll choose to stay and help me complete the last steps so that we can go home. This is our way to atone for everything we’ve done to get here. To give our people what we promised them. No bloodshed. No wars. Just peace on the Earth that was and will again be our home.”

“Is a return to Earth really possible?” Niylah asked. “I thought Earth was dead.”

“It was. Now it isn’t. It’s so beautiful, Niylah.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Many times. I helped bring it back to life.”

“I don’t know how any of this can be possible.” Gaia said. “This seems extremely far-fetched.”

“It isn’t.” Madi said, sitting up, finally awake. Everyone turned to look at her in confusion.

“I understand what she was telling me now.” Madi smiled at Octavia. “You did it. I always knew you could.”

**_SANCTUM - TAVERN - MORNING_ **

Raven had spent all night on the computers, trying to find more information about the Anomaly, as well as searching through the network for any sign of Sheidheda.

If he was there, he was covering his tracks well. If he wasn’t there, he could be on the mothership, the transport, in a mind drive… Raven didn’t like to think about all of the possibilities, but she knew the truth like they all did - someone escaped the destruction of the Flame, and that someone was most likely Sheidheda.

When morning came, Emori had dragged her out of the lab, despite her protests that she didn’t need to sleep. Emori compromised by depositing Raven in the tavern at a table with Indra and some other older members of Wonkru. They all looked at Raven with some level of suspicion.

“What?” Raven snapped.

“We’re told you’re looking through the computer networks for information about Sheidheda.”

“Well, not looking for information, exactly, just looking for him. Why?”

“It may help you to know precisely who Sheidheda is. What he did. Why he was so dangerous. And perhaps most significantly, how he changed the Flame.”

“I did wonder about that.” Raven said. “I _know_ Becca. As well as you can know someone who lived generations before you, at any rate. Blood must have blood, untold levels of violence, your entire society in general… no offense, but that is not what Becca envisioned the Flame being used for.”

“There have been peaceful Commanders. Commanders who fought for peace. The ones you’ve met, Lexa kom Trikru and Madi kom Wonkru, among them.”

“Peaceful?” Raven scoffed. “Lexa wanted to torture my childhood best friend to death, and then attempted to do the same to me, even though I was innocent. Quite a number of you cut me before Clarke figured out that the traitor was Lexa’s bodyguard, not me.”

“I am sorry for that, Raven.”

“Save your apologies for now. What did Sheidheda do to change the Flame?”

“Before Sheidheda - or at least, so my grandfather told me - there was no blood must have blood. We didn’t have complete peace, but the Commanders before him, their power had been restricted in scope. They were a ceremonial leader, a wise one, rather than someone who held absolute power and commanded armies. That was the main change that Sheidheda made. Somehow that became a part of the Flame itself, because out of all of the Commanders, he was the one who was able to control it the best, change it, and twist it to his own purposes, even isolating the other Commanders, just like he did to Madi now.”

“What are you saying? Are you saying he understood what the Flame really was - that is, tech?”

“It’s possible. It didn’t occur to me when I was a child, of course, but when we were in the bunker, suddenly some of my grandfather’s strangest stories began to make sense. That the clans as we know them now only began to develop not long before my birth. And that all came as a reaction to the one clan that was a threat to all the rest.”

“But how did separating into smaller clans help to fight them? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Smaller decentralized groups are harder to conquer. This meant that even as Sheidheda came, he couldn’t take all of us. Not at once. That bought the time necessary for his Flamekeepers to finally put him down. That clan has not held the Commander’s Throne since. Not legitimately, at any rate.”

“So Sheidheda was a member of this clan that posed a threat? A clan that may have known and understood tech - at least in his time, even if they don’t now?”

“That’s correct.”

“Which clan, Indra? Which clan was he?”

“Azgeda.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: This chapter contains graphic self-harm.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Extra Warning: This chapter contains graphic self-harm.** If this is something that affects your life, proceed with caution. Please seek help. Know that you matter and that you don't have to be alone.
> 
> Trigedasleng is translate inline, except for _Ani Osli_ , which is a child-Hope's way of saying _Aunt Osleya_ (referring to Octavia's title of Osleya, Champion of the Final Conclave).

**_FOREST - CHILDREN OF GABRIEL CAVE - AFTERNOON_ **

The Children of Gabriel took Gabriel away to what they called their colony, leaving Bellamy and Hope chained up in the same cave where Bellamy had been chained up with Josephine less than a week earlier.

Bellamy sighed, sitting down and resting his head against the cave wall. He’d slept at Gabriel’s camp the previous night, but it had been anything but restful. He still wasn’t convinced that Octavia was all right, nor was he convinced that Echo hadn’t just walked into a whole lot of trouble.

Hope caught the sigh. “Annoyed at being back here again?”

Bellamy looked at her suspiciously. “How would you know that?”

Hope shrugged, settling into a more comfortable position against the wall. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then help me to understand.”

“I can’t do that. Not yet. You have to see first.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You’ll understand it when you do.”

“You must have learned cryptic from your mother. Octavia’s never been able to hide her emotions.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Am I wrong?”

“Yes. Maybe she didn’t when you knew her, but those years in the bunker - she had to learn, and quickly.” Hope narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t even know what she went through down there.”

“I know enough.”

Hope scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that. But you really have no idea.”

“Hope, I have no idea what my sister told you about me, but I love her. I do. Sometimes it has been hard for her to see it, but I do.”

“You don’t ask someone to _see_ love. You _show_ it to them. But truth be told, _ani_ only ever told me good things about you. How her brother was brave, how he was kind, how he always wanted to protect her, protect his people, save them from any dangers.”

“If that’s what she told you, then what’s with the attitude?”

“Because I also know what you _did._ I didn’t know the details, not at first, mother and _ani_ were always careful what they said about their past around me. Especially about _ani’s_ past, since they both knew that one day I’d have to meet all of you, while the figures from mother’s past were long dead and gone. But what they didn’t realize was that the information they told me didn’t fit what I already knew to be true, deep within my soul.”

“What did you know to be true? And how?”

“Let’s talk about something else.” Hope said abruptly, closing her eyes. “Or better yet, don’t talk at all.”

**_SIXTEEN YEARS AGO BY OMPHALOS TIME_ **

**_OMPHALOS - DIYOZA AND OCTAVIA’S APARTMENT - NIGHT_ **

Diyoza’s feet had hit the floor before her mind even registered why, running towards the sounds of the screams, already knowing what they meant. Sometimes she made it to Octavia’s room in time.

But not today. As she barreled in the door, she already saw the blood, saw the shard of glass plunged deep in Octavia’s arm, held in place as blood welled up around the edges, spilling over onto the bedsheets. Octavia’s traumatized subconscious mind recognized that her healing ability prevented regular wounds from causing pain, that if she wanted to feel pain the object of it still needed to be in the wound so that it couldn’t heal.

As she rushed over to the bed, Diyoza clocked all the windows, noting that they were still whole, the glass must have come from Octavia’s mirror. After the second night last week that Octavia had cut herself in her sleep, Diyoza locked away all of Octavia’s knives, put a lock on the kitchen drawers, but subsequent nights had Octavia’s subconscious getting more creative. Pens, glasses, sewing needles… anything that could or did have a point on it was locked up during the night now.

Diyoza cursed herself for missing the mirrors, she’d known that Octavia’s reflection could be a trigger for her if her mind was already in a bad place.

“Octavia.” Diyoza said softly, barely audible over the sound of the screams, but something in Octavia’s expression said that she heard it regardless. “Octavia, give me the glass.”

The screams changed, as they did, calming Octavia’s nightmares was something that Diyoza was well familiar with. There had been some violent ones their first weeks and months in Omphalos, but they had stopped about six months out. But now they were back, and more violent than ever.

“Bellamy!” Octavia shrieked as her hand clutching the glass shuddered, slicing a new path as the one behind it began to heal. “Bellamy, I can’t breathe! Bellamy, what did you do? _Bellamy!”_

“Bellamy’s not here. Bellamy can’t hurt you anymore.” Diyoza kept her voice calm as one of her hands pressed Octavia’s wounded arm to the bed, knowing from experience that easy access to the hand with the weapon relied on keeping the other arm in range. Not an approach that she would have used with her soldiers back on Earth before the bombs, too risky, but since Octavia couldn’t permanently injure herself like this, for these circumstances it worked.

“He is. He’s everywhere. Indra, my brother poisoned me. He poisoned me. He poisoned me. _He poisoned me…”_

“I’m not Indra. She’s far away too. She can’t hurt you either.” Diyoza murmured, her other hand making it to Octavia’s wrist, gripping it tightly and pulling it back from her arm, the shard of glass finally free from Octavia’s flesh, the wound healing over even as blood still dripped down Octavia’s arm and onto the sheets.

_“Ani?”_

Diyoza’s head whipped around to the door as her heart clenched, seeing Hope standing there with wide eyes, her small arms clutching a doll tightly to her chest. A doll Hope called _Ani Osli,_ that one of the Omphalans had made for her and Hope had added her own elements to, to create her image of _ani_ saving her people from the fires back on Terra.

“Hope, honey, go back to bed.” Diyoza said sternly. “Go. Now.”

“What’s wrong with _ani?”_

“She’s sick, but you can help her. Go back to bed. Hold _Ani Osli_ tight, and whisper to her that you want her to get better, okay? She’ll be able to hear you better that way, understand? Please.”

Hope nodded, fleeing back to her own room.

Diyoza turned her attention back to Octavia, whose screams were beginning to subside into terrified murmurs of her brother’s name, and some properly applied pressure to her wrist was enough to let the shard of glass drop. Diyoza breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the wrist of the formerly wounded arm, grabbing Octavia’s shoulder as she rested their foreheads together.

The jolt that went through Octavia’s body at the contact was familiar, a sign that the nightmare was coming to an end and that Octavia was waking up.

A few seconds later, and the glassy blank look in Octavia’s eyes faded away, replaced with confusion.

Octavia didn’t even realize she’d woken up from her nightmares until she registered Diyoza sitting in front of her, one of her hands holding Octavia’s wrist in a vice grip, the other gripping her shoulder tightly.

The next thing she registered was the bloody shard of glass that looked like it had dropped from her grip after Diyoza had forced it out of her hand. Her bedsheets were stained with blood, forearms too, but Diyoza didn’t have a scratch on her.

That meant that the blood was her own. Again.

“Are you back here with me?” Diyoza asked, voice laced with worry and an undercurrent of exhaustion.

“Yeah.” Octavia whispered. “I don’t - I don’t know what it was.”

“This time you were screaming something about your brother and Indra. What is Dr Warner putting you through in your therapy sessions?”

“Nothing. I mean, nothing new. We’re just talking like we always do. I thought we were making progress, but…”

“This is the fifth time in two weeks. The second time that Hope walked in. She’s terrified. You’d be dead five times over if it wasn’t for your ability to heal. But you’re still scaring all of us.”

“I know. I know, I just - I don’t know where it’s coming from. I’m so sorry. I never wanted her to see any of this. I’ll move out, go move in with Paige instead, Hope shouldn’t have to -”

“You’re not going anywhere. These Omphalans are too soft to be able to handle you. But I am going to the university and making them cut your workload.”

“What? No. I’m graduating in two months, I need to finish all my work, I need this to be able to go on the mission -”

“The mission is still a year off. You still have time. Plus they know how important it is to you, they won’t leave you off of it. They’ll understand when Dr Warner writes you a medical certificate. Too much work causes stress, especially mental stress, you know that.”

“I know.”

“Good. You need to take care of yourself. That’s the only way this ends. Heal yourself, heal the world, that’s what Dr Warner says, right?”

“Right.”

“Say it.”

“I heal myself, I heal the world. I heal myself, I heal the world. I heal myself, I heal the world.”

“Good girl.” Diyoza pressed a kiss to Octavia’s forehead, moving closer to hold Octavia in her arms, a familiar ritual from the years of nightmares she’d already helped soothe. “It’ll get better. Sometimes it gets worse right before it gets better. Just try not to scare us like that again.”

Octavia nodded, continuing to whisper _heal myself, heal the world_ to herself, needing desperately to be able to make that real.

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - AFTERNOON_ **

“So, that’s the story of how we’ve restored Terra - Earth.” Octavia said, spinning on her stool to turn away from the computer and the images flashing across the screen to face the others again. She’d started taking photos several Terran missions ago, to show the progress their work was making. “It has taken fifteen Omphalan years, but the world is ready for human habitation again. We introduced animals five Omphalan years ago, and they’re flourishing. So we can go there now too.”

“But how many years have passed there compared to here?” Niylah asked.

“Decades more. After our first mission, someone spun the time tether out quite substantially, so when we make it back to Terra, it’ll have been almost five centuries since we left on the Eligius ship.”

“But why would we go back there when we’ve got a life here - or, on Sanctum, rather?” Miller asked, definitely not convinced. “The Primes are gone. We can live in Sanctum now.”

“Do you want to keep experiencing the red sun every few weeks? Deal with man-eating plants, and the eventual extinction of society there?”

“What?” Gaia asked.

“That planet is not ready for human habitation.” Octavia said. “A cataclysmic event caused by the last human inhabitants, hundreds of Sanctum years ago. Worse than the radiation on Earth, their carelessness on that planet lead to the release of a biological toxin that altered life there on a molecular level. And that molecular alteration is still going on - that’s what the toxin does. Some exposure to it is survivable, as long as you survive its side effects, but over years, decades, centuries - it is breaking down the bodies of the people who live there too. Even if we hadn’t come to Sanctum, the Primes and their followers and the others on the moon would have been dead in just a few generations.”

“So we’re in this place you call Omphalos. That’s somewhere up above there.” Miller pointed vaguely to the ceiling. “Why can’t we stay here?”

“This isn’t our home. Not to mention that right now if you went out that door without knowing where to go, you’d be taken by Father William and his followers, and who knows what would happen to you then. While he still controls Omphalos, it isn’t safe for any of us here. We need to take him out.”

“I thought you said there would be no wars.” Miller said. “This sounds like a war.”

“It isn’t going to be a war.” Madi said. “Octavia, you haven’t even told them the best part.”

“One thing at a time, Madi.” Octavia reminded her. “And that part isn’t as easily explained.”

“That’s for sure.” Echo said, coming into the room, one hand rubbing her temple. “I have a headache.”

_“Ekou?”_ Gaia asked. _“Hakom yu kamp raun hir? Ha?” (Echo? Why are you here? How?)_

_“Ai nou Ekou.” (I’m not Echo.)_

“You sure?” Miller asked. “You look like her.”

“I mean, that’s not my name anymore. It never was. It was the name of my best friend when I was in training. Queen Nia forced us to fight to the death. I won. Echo had been in training to be a spy, and I had to take on her name and her mission.”

“Have you chosen a name?” Octavia asked.

“Not yet. It will change, I just don’t know when. For now, I would prefer Ash. That was my name before I had to kill my best friend, but it is still not the name I will want.”

“Okay. Ash. Welcome.” Octavia smiled, and something passed between them that left all of the others besides Madi confused.

_“Yu kom tripigouthru op.” (You came through the Anomaly.)_ Gaia said. “Did it do something to you?” 

“Nothing happened to me in the Anomaly.” Ash said. “You all passed through it too. No, this is something else, something I wasn’t ready for, but - I’m beginning to understand it now.”

“Care to share your secrets with the rest of us?” Miller asked, his exasperation growing. “Or you know what? Don’t. This is ridiculous.”

Miller went to turn away, but Niylah stopped him with a firm hand on his arm. “Don’t.” She said quietly.

“Why am I not surprised that you’re still choosing _her.”_ Miller snarled with a glance in Octavia’s direction. “So is Jackson, and I - I don’t understand why.”

“We understand that loyalty isn’t something to be bought or sold to clear one’s conscience. You sold your loyalty to Bellamy with the hope that his absolution meant that your conscience would be clear, but that hasn’t been the case, has it? You still feel the pain that we all feel for all that we had to do to stay alive in the bunker. Because that is an experience we had together, the only way we can heal is together.”

“If her story is to be believed, _she_ didn’t need us. She managed to heal all on her own, didn’t she?”

“It would have been easier with people who really knew the source of my pain.” Octavia said quietly. “Plus I’d been cast out of Sanctum. I didn’t have a choice. The years I spent healing here were hard. Really hard. And the first years weren’t even the worst, the real pain hit me later than I would have expected.”

“So what, you’re saying how we feel now isn’t going to be the worst we feel?” Miller’s tone was sardonic. “That’s just great.”

“You’re angry. I get it. I’ve been there.” Octavia said. “And I understand your skepticism. If someone asked me to trust the broken girl I was back then, the girl you last saw, I wouldn’t either. But I found peace, and in that peace I found so many possibilities, and a universe in need of putting right. If I found peace, you can. Let me help you. I owe you that.”

“How do you think you can help us?” Gaia asked. “And what is this secret knowledge that Madi somehow seems to have?”

“It’s not secret, _seda.”_ Madi said. “Just not something you would have been able to know. But I could, because of the Flame.”

“She spoke to you, didn’t she?” Octavia asked. “I think I saw her when I was on Planet Alpha, but I didn’t know what it all meant. I thought I was losing my mind.”

Madi nodded. “She sensed you, when you returned from the Anomaly. She protected me, even while Sheidheda was in control. She’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

“She who, Madi?” Gaia asked.

“Bekka Pramheda. The Flame’s gone, _she’s_ gone, but… she felt it. She felt that connection, and she knew that’s what all of her tech had been building towards. That the way to make life better isn’t by having tech run the world for us, or for tech to advise us, but for tech to help us learn from each other in a way that we couldn’t do on our own.” Madi turned to Gaia. “If you believed in the Flame, if you believed in me, in Lexa, in Bekka Pramheda… believe in Octavia. Bekka Pramheda did.”

**_FOREST - CHILDREN OF GABRIEL COLONY - AFTERNOON_ **

The Children of Gabriel manhandled him all the way to the colony, arriving in the main square of the village and shoving him to his knees before the crowd.

“Xavier!” A woman yelled as she made her way out of the crowd. “Ahab, what is the meaning of this? What has Xavier done?”

“I’m not Xavier.” Gabriel admitted. “I am Gabriel Prime. I was resurrected ten years ago in the body of your son. I am sorry.”

Maria raised her hand to cover her mouth, sobs wracking her body as an older man came up behind her, tears in his eyes as well.

“No.” Maria wept. “No no no. And Layla? Where’s my Layla?”

“She was killed by the worshipers of the Primes in Sanctum.” Gabriel said, looking down. “I am sorry about that too. But with the help of the people from Earth, we have put an end to the Primes and an end to the resurrections. No more will die for a few to have immortality.”

“You’re still a Prime. A hypocrite of the worst kind.” Ahab spat. “You brought us all here, raised us here, raised us to believe that to be a Prime was to lose your soul. Yet here you are, in a new body. I guess death isn’t life after all, is it, old man?”

“I didn’t ask to be resurrected.” Gabriel said. “But I did fear what would happen if I told the truth that I was.”

“Coward.” Ahab scoffed. “If you were willing to die when your last body died, then why not tell the truth and die?”

“Because if I did that, then Xavier would have died for nothing.” Gabriel looked up at Maria and Jeremiah. “I am sorry that I deceived you for ten years. I am. So many times I wanted to tell you, but - but I knew that I would die for what had happened. I didn’t want your son’s life to have been taken in vain. Killing me wouldn’t have brought him back. So all I could do was promise myself to make his death mean something.”

“And has it?” Jeremiah asked stonily. “Has it meant something?”

“Yes. It means that soon we will all be able to leave this place and return to Earth.”

“But the people from Earth came here because Earth was dead.” Ahab said. “Why are you lying to us?”

“I’m not lying. You don’t know everything yet, so here it is - a few weeks ago, I met some of the people from Earth. Saved their lives, even when they’d taken the lives of our people. Then one of them, a young woman, walked into the Anomaly. Not an unfamiliar story, we’ve all known people who have. But what makes this story different is that she came back.”

“So she came back.” Maria said. “What does this have to do with going back to Earth?”

“She was only gone from here for the blink of an eye, but time passed a lot longer on the other side. You’ve all seen the temporal flares and what they do, the Anomaly’s effect between worlds also affects the passage of time. The Anomaly took her to a place from which she could then return to Earth and help bring it back to life. A place that knows many planets across the universe, and restores them all after they die. We all know the dangers of this world. She told me that it was because this planet is not ready for human habitation. That the ship that brought your ancestors and me here never should have come, and that living here for generations is slowly killing us. But returning to Earth can save us. Can save you.”

“Is this the girl locked up in the cave?” Ahab asked.

“No. That girl was raised on the other side of the Anomaly. She came out of it when it expanded yesterday. Surely you all witnessed that.”

“We did.”

“This story from the other side is consistent with what we’ve experienced on this world. More importantly, it is consistent with the truth that the Primes have always hid from the people in Sanctum. But it is a truth you know.”

Despite their mistrust of Gabriel, the crowd - including Ahab, Maria and Jeremiah - couldn’t help but look around at the buildings around them. Their strong foundations, their damaged but patched facades, much older than the seventy years that Gabriel’s Children had lived there. Gabriel watched as some of them put the pieces together.

“There was a civilization here before us.” Ahab said. “The people on the other side had something to do with it.”

Gabriel nodded. “As they always do. But their system is flawed. They leave people to suffer when they could help them. But the girl from Earth and the girl from the other side have something that can break that system.”

Gabriel moved to get to his feet, and no one stopped him. “I’m not asking you to follow me. I know I don’t deserve that anymore. But I am asking you to trust in them. Listen to them and learn. Then Earth will no longer be a dream, but it will be real. Are you ready to go home?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng:
> 
>  _Hofi_ \- Octavia's nickname for Hope ("Hofli" meaning hopefully, "hof" possibly meaning "hope" as a noun/verb, which I've modified to Hofi for the purposes of Hope's name).

**_SANCTUM - PALACE - AFTERNOON_ **

Murphy and Emori watched from a palace window as crowds of Sanctum residents began to gather on the balcony beneath the palace. The Wonkru guards guarding the entrances to the palace paced nervously, unclear as to what their duties were besides protecting their people inside. The residents of Sanctum were not armed, but as their numbers grew, so did their concern.

Emori spotted Indra and Raven cutting through the crowd of Sanctum residents, moving up the palace steps, Indra speaking to each of the guards in turn. The guards straightened up, concern seemingly gone as they were given their orders.

“We should see what is going on.” Emori said. “We might need to get dressed up again.”

“Why do you think that?”

“My guess is that the people want the Primes. Or who passes for them, at any rate.”

“This god is taking the day off.” Murphy flopped back down on the bed.

“More nightmares?”

“No. Just tired, I guess.”

But that was a lie. He’d had more dreams that he hadn’t been able to explain. The airlock chamber of the Ark, but instead of seeing his father get floated, it was a dark-haired woman and he was being held back from running to her by Bellamy. The next, he was being exiled by Bellamy, but the woods around him weren’t the forests of Earth, instead he saw the forest of Planet Alpha.

Now Murphy’s head was pounding and he wished someone would just knock him out so he could get some proper rest. But before he could close his eyes again, a knock sounded on the door. He groaned.

Emori opened the door as Murphy sat up, and Raven and Indra came inside.

“The people are getting restless.” Indra said. “Both ours and theirs. No one knows what to do. Those of Sanctum are waiting for the Primes to perform the funeral rites for their dead. And our people need to know how they can establish a life here. If no one gives them any direction, then the unrest will turn to violence.”

“Are you looking for someone to lead or are you volunteering?” Murphy asked. “You know these people we brought with us from Earth. They respect you, don’t they?”

“Some of them do.”

“Then you’ll need to get more of them on your side and give that direction.” Raven said. “It isn’t as if any of us could do any better. If we want everyone to be able to live together, they need someone they know.”

“So what do I tell them?”

“Tell them… first, tell them to put down their weapons. Anything else we do to integrate these two societies will rely on everyone feeling safe around each other.” Raven said. “Then… then we introduce them.”

“And what?” Murphy asked. “Pair everyone off with a partner from the other world, and play Twenty Questions?”

“You got a better idea, Murphy?” Raven questioned. “We need you too. Unless we want to show the Sanctumites Russell, you and Emori are it for their leadership.”

“We might need to bring Russell out.” Emori said. “We don’t know how to perform the funeral rites. If we let him out for this, it is possible that we’ll have an easier time ingratiating ourselves.”

“Not a bad idea.” Indra said. “Some of my people have been to inspect the fields and the food stores. They estimate that there’s enough food for everyone in this compound, Wonkru and Sanctum alike, to last at least six months. Assuming seasons similar to Earth, and what is coming up for harvest, we have at least three months before there is need for a new round of planting. Time that can be used to get to know each other.”

“Good.” Raven nodded. “That’s good. You, Murphy and Emori talk to Russell. Take him to conduct the funeral rites this evening. See if you can some of our people to join as well, to show sympathy. I need to get back to the lab and get back on the hunt for Sheidheda.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - EVENING_ **

“Are you sure?” Octavia asked, holding Niylah’s arm in preparation of injecting her with her own blood. Her hand trembled a bit. She’d done this so many times, but this was the first time for someone from her old life. 

“I’ve always been sure.” Niylah said evenly, holding Octavia’s hand steady. “I’m with you. I always have been. Trust that. Trust us.”

“Thank you.”

“Go on. I want you to do this. I want to see the worlds you’ve seen.”

Octavia found a vein, and pressed the plunger of the syringe, sending her blood with its _tech_ into Niylah. She pulled out the syringe when it was empty and set it aside. They all watched as the injection site healed over.

“It’ll take awhile to work.” Octavia said. “And it might hurt at first. Headaches, and so on.”

“Octavia.” Niylah said, placing her hand on Octavia’s arm to shut her up. “You already told us all of this. I’m not afraid. It doesn’t worry me.”

“Me next.” Madi said, jumping into the chair on the other side of Niylah.

“Oh no.” Gaia said, stepping between Octavia and Madi. “Not until we see how this works.”

“I’m not the Commander anymore and thus you’re not my Flamekeeper.” Madi said stonily. “You don’t have any control over me. You’re the keeper of nothing, because there is no more Flame. If I want to do this, you can’t stop me.”

“Flamekeeper or no, Clarke has still trusted me to take care of you.”

“I’ve visited Clarke.” Octavia said. “I’ve also made a promise to her to take care of Madi. And I’m also looking out for Clarke, Madi - I promise you that too.”

“What does Clarke need to be worried about?” Ash asked.

“Sheidheda.” Niylah said. “It has to be. He disappeared after Raven destroyed the rest of the Flame.”

Octavia nodded. “Yes. Sheidheda is loose. We don’t know where, we can look for him once Hope has made it to Sanctum and shared my blood. But right now all I can do is try to break through to the people with mind drives, and - that’s not easy. I got through to Clarke, because I know her well and because she’s in a coma, but the others -”

“Clarke’s in a coma?” Madi asked, voice turning to panic. “What’s wrong? Is she going to be okay?”

“Jackson induced her into a coma.” Octavia said. “She needs to let her brain rest. She has brain damage from sharing a brain with Josephine, and the stress of everything she’s been through recently - she needs to rest to be able to heal. If she was awake, she’d get worse. So being in a coma is the best place for her right now.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Madi pressed.

“I’m not a medical doctor, Madi. I can’t answer that. But the more she can rest her brain, the better chance she has.”

“Can I visit her once I - you know - have the thing?”

“You could. But we shouldn’t overstress her brain. She needs to be at peace in there to be able to heal. So if you do - it has to be short, it has to be quick. Okay? Just to let her know you’re okay.”

Madi nodded. “I understand.”

“So how does this connection to the mind drives work?” Ash asked. “You said it was easier to break through to Clarke because you know her.”

“I’m not really sure myself, I’d need a mind drive to be able to study it more carefully. I just know that when I was over there, while I was missing my memories, I was getting… flashes… I guess you could say. I couldn’t explain them. From Clarke, mostly. A bit of Murphy and Emori that flashed through after I protected Emori from that adjuster. Since they don’t have this tech, it had to be something to do with the mind drives. This tech, my tech, it is all built on connection between people. Empathy and resonance. This takes time to build. So in the initial stages, it is easier to connect with people who you’ve already got a rapport with, as it were. So when I understood what it all meant after I returned here, I was able to visit Clarke right away. But the others are harder.”

“I know Murphy and Emori.” Ash said. “I can try to reach them.”

“Good idea.” Octavia said. “I’ve been trying, but since I don’t know them very well, I haven’t been able to visit, just share memories, send short flashes, things like that. Gabriel and Russell are almost impossible to reach, because they’ve had centuries of experience with mind drives and they’ve essentially built their own security systems in their minds to prevent that kind of access.”

“I may need some lessons on how to… visit, you called it?” Ash said. “I’ve only had the flashes so far, of people and places I didn’t know, until I met some of them in my mindspace. The only thing I knew for certain was when you appeared to guide me.”

Octavia nodded. “The flashes are from other people that I’m connected to. Unless you cultivate connection with them, flashes are all you’ll see, and in time you’ll learn how to control those. And if someone now takes your blood instead of mine, they won’t see those people at all, they’ll only be able to see the people you’ve cultivated a connection with. But when it comes to reaching Murphy and Emori, we can practice that together later tonight. Right now, let’s get some food into all of you.”

**_FOREST - CHILDREN OF GABRIEL CAVE - EVENING_ **

Darkness had fallen, but neither Gabriel nor his Children had returned to the cave. Hope hated being restrained like this, it reminded her too much of _him_ and what he’d done, even worse that she was locked up with _Bellamy_ of all people. He was just as smug as she’d feared, and if she let him know exactly _how_ angry she was now, he’d leave her here and she wouldn’t gain access to the people in Sanctum that she needed. The people that Octavia was counting on her to see.

So Hope tried to mediate her rage away, visiting one of her favourite places on Ki, a world far distant from where she found herself now, a meditative garden owned by her friend Inanna. It had been Inanna who taught her the meditation techniques she needed to not be as _explosive,_ as she’d put it.

She needed that peace right now if she needed to stay in Bellamy’s presence for the foreseeable future.

Octavia joined her briefly by the waterfall in the garden on Ki, passing a quick message to Inanna and pressing a kiss to Hope’s forehead. Then their surroundings changed, shifting back to the cave Hope was in, and Octavia cast a sad glance at her brother, who looked defeated as he sat back against the wall, no conversation having passed between him and Hope for hours.

“Please give him a chance, _Hofi.”_ Octavia said. “I know he can be stubborn, but please. For me.”

Octavia vanished before Hope could respond.

Before Hope had a chance to reach back out to Octavia, she heard voices at the cave entrance, and soon enough the Children of Gabriel came inside, Ahab and Gabriel ahead of the others.

“On your feet.” Ahab demanded, as two others moved out to unlock Hope and Bellamy’s chains.

“So what’s the story?” Bellamy asked.

“We’re willing to listen to her promises of a return to Earth.” Ahab said, looking at Hope. “One of our units will accompany you to Sanctum, so that we can confirm the scientific findings about this moon that Gabriel told us about.”

Hope nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Good. We move out in the morning.”

**_OMPHALOS - OCTAVIA’S LAB - NIGHT_ **

“Are you ready?” Octavia asked.

“I am.” Ash said.

The two of them sat on the floor in the middle of the lab. Madi watched them with interest, while Gaia and Miller had retreated to a different room to talk privately. Neither of them were yet convinced on whether or not they wanted to take Octavia’s empathy tech. Niylah sat in a far corner of the lab, deep in a meditation of her own, reaching towards her mindspace.

“You’ve meditated before?” Octavia asked.

Ash cracked one of her eyes open. “I spent years as a warrior. An archer. Part of that is learning to breathe and control your mind. That’s what meditation is, no?”

“I get your point. Okay. Give me your hands.”

Ash took Octavia’s hands, and they matched their breathing together, breathing in and out steadily in time with one another. They did this for several minutes, making sure they could keep time with one another without wavering, like they were an army moving as one, except this time in peace instead of war.

“We need a strong memory, a powerful one, for both of us.” Octavia said. “Let’s work on Murphy first, and reaching out to him to send him that memory.”

“A powerful memory that we share?”

“Yes.”

“I guess we know what that’s going to have to be, don’t we?”

Octavia smirked. “Yeah, we do.”

**_FOREST OUTSIDE POLIS - DAY_ **

_Murphy could feel his lungs burning as his breathing grew harsher, as he urged his horse - Helios, the name came to him - through the forest, trying to outrun the three Azgeda riders behind him._

_But there was no way forward - Helios reared up at the edge of a cliff, and as the Azgeda riders rode out behind him, he knew there was no running, not anymore._

_He jumped off Helios, sending him running off, at least the riders wouldn’t get him. He drew his sword._

_The three riders leapt off of their horses as well, stalking towards him. Two he dispatched quickly, one sword swipe after another, leaving him to face the final one alone._

_He almost dropped his sword when he saw the rider that approached him - white Azgeda face paint covering the whole face, except for around the eyes - around the eyes, the paint was as dark as night._

_But what shocked him wasn’t so much the face paint, but the fact that the rider in front of him was **him**. It was **him** in that face paint and Azgeda get up._

_His other self lashed out with a sword, and they fought and fought, despite his insistence that he wasn’t coming quietly but his other self insisting on bringing him in alive._

_That wasn’t going to happen. He lost his sword and as he tried to regain his footing in the fight, he pierced himself through the side on his double’s sword._

_Don’t let them take you alive, his last thoughts as he took one step back, then two, and tumbled backwards over the cliff, falling into the water below._

Murphy awoke with a start, this nightmare even more confusing than the last ones had been, but the same thought ran through his head - _what the hell was that?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming next week:
> 
> _**7x03 You Can't Just Watch, You Have To See** \- Having gained access to Sanctum, Hope's true colours emerge as she takes her revenge. Murphy turns to Raven for help in solving his troubling dreams._
> 
> Be sure to subscribe to the series (OsleyaKomWonkru's Season 7 of The 100) so that you get updates for the whole season and not just the individual episodes!
> 
> If you're confused about Octavia's tech and what it does, don't worry - the science behind it will be explained in upcoming episodes. For a shortcut on what it does, you can also check out the show this episode title is from - _Sense8_. I struggled with the details of how Octavia's tech worked for literal weeks, until it finally dawned on me that I was trying to recreate the sensate connection from _Sense8_. *facepalm* When I realized that, it was a lot easier to work out and adapt for my purposes here.


End file.
